Welcome back.
I hope you had a great Holiday season and Happy New Year.
Now that it is 2023, let’s get you back on track to use your emotions as tools to make some progress on the list you made in November, added to in December and will now use as a guide to changing your life in January.
At the end of last year you wrote 3 changes you want to make and 2-3 action steps per change to help you accomplish those changes.
As I to make the process of change slow and easy, I suggest you take 3 months for each change.
Or, to put it another way…one month per action step.
As you work on each action step, one of three “results” will occur.
1. You are feeling enthusiastic.
The message of enthusiasm is that you are enjoying what you are doing. Consequently,use the energy of the emotion of enthusiasm as motivation to keep going.
2. You are getting frustrated.
The message of frustration is that what you are doing isn’t working.
Using the Emotions as Tools Model, you need to validate (accept as a source of information) you emotion and assess its message as applied to your situation.
Are you frustrated because you aren’t making as much progress as you think you should be making? If so, give your self some slack and additional timer for each action step. Okay, take another two weeks.
Maybe you frustrated because your action step is inadequate or poorly matched to the change you want to make.
In either case, if you are still having challenges, perhaps you will need to make some adjustments to the action step. If so, make some changes.
Or, perhaps, your frustration is informing you that the change you have designated as important to you is not as important as you originally thought.
This brings us to #3 which is the feeling of boredom.
3.You are getting bored.
Okay, the message of boredom is that the environment is no longer holding your atttention. The Emotions as Tools Model informs you that you need to understand the message of the emotion and choose an adaptive response.go for it.
If your boredom is informing you that you have completed the action step early and need to move on to the next step, well, go for it.
If, however, your boredom is informing you that the change you originally wanted to make is no longer relevant to your life, then you need to step back, reassess your life, and choose a new course.
The Emotions as Tools Model informs you that you strategically apply your emotions when you validate the emotion you are experiencing as a source of information (the message of the emotion), assess the importance and appropriateness of the message (how well does it apply to your situation), and choose an adaptive response.
To the extent that you have done this with the emotions you are experiencing, the changes you want to make in 2023 and the action steps you have devised, you will be in a position to move forward on your action steps or step back and reevaluate both the changes and the action steps, and utilize the energy of your emotions to propel you forward to accomplishing what you want in 2023.
This is using your emotions as strategic tools.
You can do it.